Thomas Shingles (3 April 1903 – 31 May 1984) was the Master Engraver of the

Royal Canadian Mint The Royal Canadian Mint () is the mint of Canada and a Crown corporation, operating under an act of parliament referred to as the ''Royal Canadian Mint Act''. The shares of the mint are held in trust for the Crown in right of Canada. The mi ...

from 1943 until his retirement in 1965; he first began work at the Mint in 1939. He was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Shingles was responsible for several of the images on

Canadian coinage The coins of Canada are produced by the Royal Canadian Mint and denominated in Canadian dollars ($) and the subunit of dollars, cents (¢). An effigy of the reigning monarch always appears on the obverse of all coins. There are standard images w ...

, including the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

V-variant nickel, which he designed in 1943 at the behest of Mint staff; although most coin designs are done at full size and then reduced via a

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...

, Shingles chose to produce this design in miniature. Other designs by Shingles include the 1959 updating of the 50 cent piece to include the

Canadian coat of arms The coat of arms of Canada, also known as the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada or, formally, as the Arms of His Majesty The King in Right of Canada is the arms of dominion of the Monarchy of Canada, Canadian monarch and, thus, also the official ...

; as with all of Shingles' work, the coin includes his initials "TS". He also designed the majority of Canadian commemorative coinage during his tenure as Master Engraver. Shingles retired from the Mint in 1965, but continued to work as a freelance artist. In 1970, he entered a contest to design the 1971 Canadian dollar coin and took first prize, being awarded $3500.Islandnet.com
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References

Canadian currency designers 1903 births 1984 deaths Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands {{England-bio-stub

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